I often interact with people who insist on avoiding reinventing the wheel, yet there have been plenty of innovations in the course of human existence that we can just as purposefully avoid reinventing. I would like to hear of someone avoiding reinventing the steam engine or sliced bread or the printing press. We can also avoid reinventing light switches and vulcanized rubber. We do not need to reinvent the screw, the fulcrum, or the pulley. Clockwork does not need to be reinvented. The telephone does not need to be reinvented. All these wonderful inventions, but we have been woefully persistent in not reinventing the wheel. I will grant that the wheel was a pretty wonderful achievement of humanity, but I believe we have avoided reinventing it enough. Please, let the wheel rest and avoid reinventing pasteurization or democracy or the Gregorian calendar.

Quit talking about the countless millions. You have numbered them at millions and I have no doubt they could be counted if you took the time. You certainly have enough time for death tolls and dollars. These millions are not abstract. They have faces—dirty or frustrated or tired or stony or bleak or hopeful—that you carefully fade under repetition. You criticize smoke and mirrors as if you have never fogged over facts or reflected the truth at oblique angles. You are the source of indifference in the pretence of caring. I am finished with you.